The Best Time to Clean Every Part of Your Kitchen

Raise your hand if you feel like, despite your very best intentions, your kitchen is messier than you'd like it to be. I'm right there with you. And it makes sense! The kitchen is the very center of your house. No matter how comfy your living room is, chances are people are always hanging out in the kitchen — or helping themselves to food from the fridge — which leads to major messes.

There are, however, a few little things you can do throughout the day to stay on top of things. Follow this plan to keep the space a little cleaner than usual.

Morning

Take advantage of being well-rested and do a little bit of tidying first thing in the morning. You can even do these tasks while you wait for the coffee to finish brewing.

Unload the dishwasher or dish rack. If the dishwasher is empty, people will be able to put their dishes right in instead of letting them accumulate in the sink. And an empty dish rack means the dishes have a place to go once they're cleaned later in the day.

If you packed lunch for yourself or any other family members, make sure the ingredients are put away, the utensils are in the sink or dishwasher, and the crumbs have been wiped up.

Have a few extra seconds? Go through and toss any suspicious-looking leftovers in the fridge or check your fruit bowl and get rid of anything that's a little too ripe.

Before Dinner

If you happen to work from home, you can do these things at lunchtime. If you work in an office, make sure you do these little chores before you start making dinner.

Move breakfast dishes to the dishwasher. Again, you want to have a place for new dishes to go as you dirty them.

Clean your coffee or tea tools. Chances are, you had a few cups and then headed out the door in the morning rush. Clean out the used grounds, wash out the pot, and consider setting things up for coffee the next morning.

Dampen your sponge and microwave it to kill bacteria and microbes. Just be sure to keep an eye on it.

After Dinner

Welcome to the heaviest kitchen cleaning you'll do all day. You gotta eat, so once dinner is done, it's time to clean up. While it might sound pretty miserable to clean on top of cooking dinner, do not leave it for the morning. "Morning You" will not like that!

Load the dishwasher and don't forget to run it! Not running it will throw off this whole cycle.

Wipe down the stove and counters. Fresh spills are always easier to clean. Include the cabinet fronts in this task. Sometimes spills get sneaky and make their way onto cabinet facings.

Wipe down the front and handle of the fridge. These spaces can get disgusting real fast.

Clean the sink and the hardware on your sink. Clear the drain, too. The more your stay on top of this, the less of a deep cleaning you have to do later on.

Take out the garbage and recycling, so it doesn't accumulate and so you don't have to do it in the morning.

Sweep or vacuum crumbs off the kitchen floor. You don't want to step on them in your slippers in the morning.